My first 3D carving on the CNC

Jason Beam

Member
Messages
1,364
Location
Sacramento, CA
This weekend turned out to be pretty fun...

I've been testing some software a guy's writing to work with height maps and generates g-code to carve out 3D stuff... Yesterday was the first time I got to try it (and my first 3D cutting ever!)

Check it out:

 
I'm really looking forward to doing some 3d stuff on mine. Need to figure out a good software for drawing my own. Does the phlatscript plugin do 3d contour exports?
 
Not that i've seen - tho, i kinda gave up on phlatscript a long time ago and it may have been updated.

This was just a photoshop file, turned to grayscale and tweaked a little to get a height map out of it then run through this "pre alpha" software to test. He'll be releasing it fairly cheaply (like around $50 or so) - and will be looking for beta testers :D
 
Now that's cool. Can you share the image you used? Just thought it would be interesting to help understand some of the issues you had.:thumb:
 
Wouldn't mind giving it a try if he is at some point.

I came across a program called AccuTrans 3D that looks to do a pretty good job of converting files to various formats. Can export the Collada (*.dae) files from Sketchup, open them with AccuTrans 3D and export to other types. Currently I'm testing it with CamBam. Other than having to re-scale the objects to the original size and change the X axis 90 degrees in CamBam, seems to work well for creating 3d profiles.

The AccuTrans 3D has a 30 day trial, but seems to be "honor ware", but is only $20 to get rid of the nag screen.
 
The curves are impressively smooth on the finish cut, I was expecting to see a lot more side-side roughness. I really don't need to watch these they make me want a CnC machine :D
 
Top